Tonight saw the debut of the 15th episode in the 35th season of The Simpsons on FOX, entitled “Cremains of the Day” (a reference to the 1989 novel The Remains of the Day and the 1993 movie it inspired) and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment of the long-running animated sitcom.
“Cremains of the Day” begins at Moe’s Tavern where Moe Szyslak (voiced, as always, by Hank Azaria) is convinced to place his first-ever bet on a football game, which– after an agonizing back-and-forth– he loses, causing him to kick everyone out of the bar, except for one of the “barflies” (a couple of background characters who have been around since the beginning of The Simpsons with very few speaking lines) named Larry. Soon Moe realizes that Larry is dead, and we cut to the barfly’s funeral, which Marge Simpson (Julie Kavner) has insisted that her family attend, even though Homer (Dan Castellaneta) doesn’t know much about Larry at all. During the ceremony, Larry’s mother (Tress MacNeille) insists that the other regulars at Moe’s say something about their friendship with her son, and they are able to fake their way through a story about going fishing with him, but afterwards Marge makes them feel guilty about never having truly gotten to know Larry Dalrymple– whose full name was revealed here for the first time.
So after Larry’s mother presents them with a drawing he once made of them all in front of a waterfall, Homer, Moe, Lenny (Harry Shearer), and Carl (Alex Désert) all decide to take a road trip to spread Larry’s ashes in that same waterfall. This moment is accentuated by a stylishly animated dream sequence set to a parody of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” and soon the four men find themselves in Moe’s van on the way out into the wilderness. They stop at a motel, where they debate what happens to you after you die– Homer sticks to something resembling the Christian version of heaven, while Moe declares there’s nothing but a black void, and Lenny and Carl each come up with something in-between. It’s a surprisingly introspective moment for these four friends, and a welcome diversion from their usual antics. The next morning while going to the bathroom, Homer accidentally knocks over Larry’s urn and reveals that the barfly was smuggling sapphires when he was cremated. Moe stumbles into this secret as well, and convinces Homer to keep it from the other two members of their party.
But some erratic driving on Lenny and Carl’s part sends the urn flying out of the back of the fan, dumping its content on the road. And as they’re trying to scoop it back up, the four are arrested by a man posing as a local sheriff, but who is really a heavy working for mobster Fat Tony (regular The Simpsons guest star Joe Mantegna). Fat Tony tells him to let the men go, but since this hitman is known for leaving no loose ends, he plans to murder them all. Homer luckily finds a flare gun in the man’s trunk, but in using it he sends the car careening down a steep cliff, where the four pals must work together to save each other or fall to their certain doom. In the end, it’s Larry’s urn that gets caught in the wheel well and stops the car from plummeting with Homer left inside. And together they realize that Larry didn’t want his ashes spread at a real waterfall at all– he just wanted his remains to… remain at Moe’s (in front of one of those gaudy electronic waterfall pictures) with the rest of the gang. I liked this episode mostly because of how different it was from the average The Simpsons outing these days. It was also interesting to see the powers that be at the show kill off another recurring character (as resigned to the background the barfly always was), and let’s face it… it’s great to see these four chums– Barney Gumble got left out because he was doing actual humanitarian work in Mexico– going on an adventure together outside of Moe’s Tavern.
New episodes of The Simpsons air Sunday evenings on FOX.